This summer our skies are choked with smoke - again. The sky is orange and the smell and taste of smoke is pervasive. As a native Oregonian, I know it’s getting worse.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Two-thirds of Oregon’s forests are federally-owned, and the smoke we’re inhaling today is due to their lack of management or harvest for decades. The solution is simple: continue sustainable harvest of wood in Oregon’s private forests and increase harvest on federal forests.

Rampant, unchecked megafires in federal forests have catastrophic consequences for our safety, health, communities, and economy. Last summer, more than 7,600 people were evacuated from their homes. Oregonians suffered unhealthy air quality, emergency-room visits spiked, and the cancellations of Oregon Shakespeare Festival performances, the Sisters Folk Festival, and Cycle Oregon cost our state millions in tourism dollars.

An area roughly the size of Rhode Island burned last summer in Oregon. An equal number of fires started in federal and private forests, but roughly 95 percent of the acres burned in federal forests.

What does that tell us? Private forest fires are easier to put out.

Why? We reduce fuels through harvest, replant, maintain access to the woods, and put fires out.

The trend continues this summer - an area larger than Portland and Seattle combined is burning today in Oregon, and roughly 75 percent is in federal forests. Since 2008, nearly 80 percent of torched acres in Oregon were in federal forests.

Many claim this is the new normal, but we don’t have to accept this. I’m a second-generation forester, I’ve fought fire and worked in forestry my entire career.

Oregonians are forward-thinking and environmentally minded, and foresters are no different. In 1971, we pioneered forest regulations and today observe some of the strictest environmental protections in the nation, including reforestation after harvest. Notably, reforestation after fire is not required, but private forests are rehabilitated after fire and replanted. Federal forests mostly remain charred.

Oregon produces the most softwood lumber in the United States, mostly from private forests. Producing renewable, environmentally-friendly products helps the planet: trees literally use sunlight to capture carbon dioxide (a primary greenhouse gas) from the air and turn it into sustainable building products.

We can either store carbon in locally-grown, sustainable wood products, and replant trees, or we can release that carbon straight into the atmosphere when our overstocked federal forests burn. The former is what private forestland owners do: produce green jobs, maintain forest health, and permanently avoid using more carbon-intensive alternative building products. Federal forests do the latter: emit carbon which exacerbates climate change and damages our health.

Oregonians should feel proud knowing private forests do a tremendous job cleaning up human-caused carbon emissions every year. But there is something Oregonians can do to stay healthy, reduce forest fires and mitigate climate change: encourage the use of Oregon-grown wood from federal forests.

Oregon is one of the best places in the world to grow trees - it’s what makes our state beautiful. Private forests are managed for fire resiliency and produce environmentally-friendly products. Federal forests should do the same.